To Die To Sin
by Stories4fun
Summary: Being ordered to kill the one person he was told to protect. Such a contradiction and inner turmoil on what to do, and from what has led up to this point. In the end, the choice is to die or to sin.
1. It's Okay

Inspired by CODEno-103 piece titled "It's Okay"

He unsheathed his sword, the sound of metal scraping grating against his nerves as the noise reverberated harshly in the silent room cutting to the very core of him.

Slowly, ever so slowly, he moved it toward the woman on her knees before him. It seemed the act of lifting it proved difficult. To point it at its target, even more so.

It was not that this target he had been assigned to execute had power greater than him that made this so hard, in fact it should have been easy - simple and done with, without hesitation- but there was something else holding him back. Something he could not name, nor fathom. It was a _feeling_.

Even as he did this, the woman made no attempt to stop him, to shield herself in any way or fight against her fate. Maybe it would have made it easier had she done so.

Instead, she remained where she was and simply stared up at him from her position. Her eyes were soft, kind, almost understanding, and he **hated** it. He did not want to look upon her face, or into her eyes that appeared to see into the very depths of his being, yet he could not make himself turn away. To do so would be a grave insult and would only add to his sin.

He didn't want to do this - that he felt enough to even want, or not want, as the case may be, to do something was astonishing enough already - but it was an order, and he always followed orders. It was how he ended up in this mess in the first place. Had he not been ordered to watch over her, he would not find this task difficult at all, but having been in her company for as long as he had, it became the hardest thing he had ever been forced to do.

Her soft, reassuring voice sounded in the excruciatingly quiet room. "It's okay." Such simple words, yet they made his hand tremble and his blade shake.

If the woman had simply remained quiet, not talked to him whenever he was around her, all the time about everything that came to her head, not pulled him in, intrigued him with her beliefs, her will _, her heart_ , had she just done as she was told and said no more to him than was necessary, this could have all been over with already.

Of course that was not meant to be. She had talked to him. She told him stories of her world, the wonders she described and insisted he see one day. She spoke of her friends, of connections, of feelings, of the heart.

He mainly remained quiet when she talked of trivial things, taking to study her face and the whirlwind of expressions that passed through it that left him dizzy with how quickly they changed during her stories. He was stonily silent most of the time as he took it all in, absorbed every little thing he could about her. He only interjected when he did not understand something or found something she said or spoke of to be foolish.

It was when she would talk about matters of the heart, human emotions, when he became truly vested in the topic she brought up. He was curious about what made her, and other humans, act as they did. What made them tick? What made her, her? So odd and different, and unafraid when surely **she should be**.

He tried to grasp just what reason they had to do so many foolish things. Emotions were foreign entities, intangible and undetectable by his eyes, which he used to perceive all matters in this world. He continued to try to piece the puzzle together, to figure humans out, to figure _her_ out. He desired to understand, as he had always been a curious creature. It just seemed the concept continued to elude him.

Despite his inability to comprehend her, it appeared eerily effortless for her to understand him. It was unsettling, how easily she slipped into his life and without warning began to grow on him.

He had been more than just her jailor. He was her guard, her caretaker, her sometimes companion - the only one she had here - and her protector, someone whom she trusted to keep her safe from the others, and from harm. She trusted far too easily for now he would be the one to cause it. How cruel this twist of fate was.

"It's okay, Ulquiorra-kun." She repeated, this time with his name and the suffix she had given him some time ago when he had acted as a protector shielding her from harm and earning her trust, her naïve heart reaching out to him and proclaiming him her friend.

He remained silent as she claimed him as such, allowing her that comfort, letting it go despite his own judgment on friends and other matters of human feelings. Insisting in his mind that he was simply doing his duty, that he had only protected her because he was her caretaker and guard so believed it part of his job to not allow harm to come to her.

Maybe he had built up some sort of attachment to her, it would explain why he was hesitating, his blade wavering and not yet plunged into her awaiting, unbelievably vulnerable, flesh. Humans, after all, were so very breakable.

He maintained, had he not been assigned her caretaker, this would have been easily done and handled without a problem. Yet, he had been, and so he continued to pause conflicted as to what to do, his sword suspended, hovering over her chest.

He was not doing so to intimidate or scare her, that would be pointless, she had never feared him and even now her eyes held none, even with the tip of his blade where it was and the intention evident.

It was like he could not bring himself to end her life as per his order. It was the first time he had ever wanted to defy an order.

She must have seen his reluctance, read his struggle as she had always so effortlessly been able to read him.

"Don't be sad."

Her eyes were hard to look at anymore, they were far too compassionate, far too understanding, even as they filled with tears.

"It's not like you have another choice…" He did though, and that's what made this a terrible sin on him, one that would surely haunt him.

He could ignore the order, but he would find himself where she was. He would be destroyed for disobedience, and all it would serve to do is stave off her death until another came to end it, because they would follow the order.

She did not fear death, she feared dying alone. He knew this. He knew she did not want to die without someone she cared for with her, even though she spoke of her heart being with her friends even if she were to die. It was just another thing that had confused him at the time. Now, he wanted to, at the very least, let her die with someone she cared for, someone she believed to be her friend - even if that someone was him. No matter how it would affect him, he would do this, because he had to.

"It's okay, I…" Her voice cracked, unable to get anymore words out as the first of her tears slipped down from those beautiful orbs that were locked on his own. Still refusing to back down, she was defiant and strong to the end, never once looking away from him or her own death she could clearly see.

"I…" She tried again, her eyebrows moving up and a small painfully kind smile that was only for his benefit forming on her lips.

The sight of it should have sickened him, or left him without feeling anything at all, for he was the epitome of nothingness. Yet she had always made him feel, even when he shouldn't. So instead, he felt some terrible pain that he could not quite place as his vision became blurred.

Those eyes staring unflinchingly back at him, and the words she spoke next branded his very being.

"I forgive you, Ulquiorra-kun." He visibly flinched at her words and felt something wet trail down his cheek, right along the dark colored tear marks on his face.

Only then did he realize they were _tears_ , that he was crying, and that this feeling, it was **_true despair_**. He had thought he had known it before, for all the suffering he had lived through in this retched life, yet here and now he found an unimaginable facet that tore him apart worse than anything had ever managed.

He believed himself unworthy of her forgiveness. He did not deserve to be forgiven. Not for this, never. He would never deserve forgiveness for this.

Without really knowing why, he took a step closer, the sound of the single footstep echoing loudly in the unbearably silent room.

He never broke eye contact despite how desperately he wished he could look away or close his eyes, to not have to see what he was about to do.

Her eyes shown with understanding, forgiveness, and utter acceptance as she resigned herself to her fate.

This sin he was about to commit, it would never leave him.

The sight of her, her very being etched its mark on his bared soul.

Maybe that's why it haunted him.

Her soul, he didn't know where it went. Despite that, her ghost lingered in the now broken kingdom.

Her friends had come to rescue her, _of course_ they had. They left empty handed, with nothing but heavy hearts grieving for the girl they failed to come save in time. Somehow they still managed to be victorious in the war, to defeat Aizen, not that it changed anything, she was still gone. Nothing could bring her back.

The remaining few who survived it once more lived within the walls of the place he had been assigned to protect. His last order ever given to him. In an uncharacteristic fit of fury, he had wanted to blow the entire place up just to **spite** the man who had given him the _order_. But he couldn't bring himself to.

In doing so, he would have destroyed the last place she could be found. The last trace of her in that room, locked away like a princess in a tower.


	2. It Never Leaves

The others noticed his frequent visits to the empty room. He didn't care.

It was the only place he could catch a glimpse of her. Sleeping on the couch, staring up at the sky through the bars on the window, seated in the chair at the table, standing in the middle of the room…kneeling on the ground prepared for death.

The images of her taunted him repeatedly, incessantly.

Some may say he was tormenting himself. That is, if they knew why he was visiting a room with seemingly nothing of value contained within its bleak white walls.

As it was, they had no basis for understanding his actions, or his reasons behind them. They were left to guess, to ponder over it, or simply brush it aside as odd behavior, a strange addition to his monotonously dull routine.

Perhaps it was because of guilt that he continued to go back to a room that no longer held an occupant. For she was already long gone, but still he frequented the place where the remnants of her remained. A ghost that haunted him each time he stepped through the threshold.

He knew logically she was not there, her ghost was just a figment of his own creation. Her soul elsewhere entirely, as it should be, she did not belong here, did not deserve to be **_damned_** to this place. Yet, still his mind persisted, presenting images of her, memories, recalled interactions, as well as those of his own invention.

The first time it happened, it had surprised him, coming out of nowhere. He hadn't even known why he went to her room, which was more like her prison.

The war had just ended. The survivors on their end returning. With them they brought the news of their failure, and that of their leader who had betrayed them all, cut down one of his own and tossed her aside without care. Somehow Tia Harribel had survived, but that was not the most prevalent thing. Aizen had betrayed the Arrancar just as he had the Shinigami before that, and in the end he was made to pay the price for it by defeat and imprisonment.

That left the remaining few to pick up the pieces of a broken empire, now leaderless.

More than that, it rendered her death _meaningless_. Had he stayed his hand, waited, or simply ignored the order entirely, as he had so desperately wished to, she would truly be occupying that room, not a phantom that lingered. All he was left with now was an after image of his own creation.

He would have accepted her simply living, even if it was not here, but back in her own world. Perhaps he would have given her up to her _rescuers_ \- they could not be called as such now - not likely though, at least without a fight.

He would have preferred that to her death at his hand. But, it was too late, her blood forever staining him, a mark upon his soul that could never be cleansed. He would never be free of it.

That was why he was made to pay for it every time he entered her once room. It was a relentless torture, and he subjected himself to the punishment willingly. It was the _least_ he deserved.

That first time it occurred, after the war was finished and the state of the once rigidly held together kingdom was now ruined and falling apart around him, he had been blindsided by it, by _feelings_ \- emotions that only she could rend from his hollow life.

He'd entered the room the woman once occupied, still reeling from both her death and the news of his lord's failure and betrayal. He knew it was inevitable that the man would betray the hollows just as he had his own kind, but it still left him without a purpose.

He wondered what the woman would say to him, what she would tell him about the situation, surely she would have an opinion on it. Yet, she was not there to tell him of her thoughts, not there to talk to him as she once had…not anymore.

With that thought he arrived where his mind had desired to go, leading him down the familiar path to the room she had once filled.

His feet had placed him right outside the door that he had so often found himself at when the woman had inhabited the room. He went in without a warning since there was no longer anyone to say something to as he entered.

Bleak vacant walls and stark white furnishings were all that greeted him as he walked in. The life that had once thrummed within it was missing. The added splash of color shocking against such a blank canvas was once again returned to its bare void, a colorless background.

He missed it.

He longed for it once more.

He stared blankly at the nothingness left in her wake.

Not even the moon's glow through the barred window could hope to illuminate the room as she once had. Her light was far brighter, it outshined the moon itself. Though the moon's light paled in comparison, it was the only light left shining into the room drained of color and life.

Standing stiffly in the middle of the room looking up toward the window as she had done several times before, he heard a voice that could not possibly be there.

"Oh, I didn't notice you were here, Ulquiorra-kun! You scared me!" Her voice came from the direction of the couch, and she sounded _far too_ cheerful to see him.

His eyes widened in shock because he knew that voice and to whom it belonged. In his mind he knew it was not possible, he knew he had killed her, so how? How could she be here talking to him just as he had wanted?

"You're always so quiet." Again the voice spoke to him and he believed there could be no way he was imagining it, it was far too clear, too real, too her.

An odd sensation of desperate hope and longing overcame him, and he had to see if it was true, if it was even possible.

Upon turning his head to see her, as he hoped to find her just sitting on the couch like he had found her so often, his hopes were disintegrated to ash as he was met with an empty space where she should have been. It matched the empty space inside him that was once filled with her.

This continued to happen, over and over again, each and every time he set foot inside that godforsaken room, adding to his suffering, aiding in his punishment.

Because-

 _Her voice…_

 ** _It never leaves_**.

Words repeating over and over. Her words. Her voice.

It was agonizing and it left him nothing but broken and empty.

"Ulquiorra-kun!" His name with that suffix she affixed to it when she declared him her friend.

"Ulquiorra-kun!" Again and again his name echoed within the uninhabited room.

"Ulquiorra-kun!" It just wouldn't stop.

"Ulquiorra-kun!" Her voice would never stop haunting him.

"Where are you Ulquiorra-kun?!" If that was not bad enough already, now it was if she were searching for him, in desperate need of him to come to her, to find her.

All he could think, all he could feel, all he could say over and over again…"I am sorry."

"Please!" He hated hearing her voice pleading with him, begging him to be there for her, to be with her. If only he could.

"I'm scared!" He didn't understand, why was she afraid? She'd never been afraid of him, so she feared something else, perhaps being alone?

He knew what it felt like now, to _truly_ be alone. And again all he could say in reply to her was 'I am sorry.'

"Help me, Ulquiorra-kun!" How could he help her? He'd been the one to end her life. For that he was eternally regretful, for all he felt now was pain.

The only way to express his remorse came in the form of futile words that would do nothing for her, certainly not bring her back. _I'm sorry._

"Please!" No matter how much she, or he, begged she would not be there. There was nothing left of her except the poignant despair caused by her absence.

"Ulquiorra-kun!"

' _I'm sorry_.'

"I forgive you…Ulquiorra-kun."

He didn't deserve it.

He just wanted it to stop, yet at the same time, never stop.

 ** _Please, go away._**

If it did, the last part of her he held onto, her voice and the images of her within her prison, would be gone. He would have nothing left. Not even this torture.

So he held on, clung to it, wouldn't let the last part of her escape. No matter how it tore him apart.

He wished to throw himself to his knees before her and beg her for…for what exactly?

She had already given her forgiveness easily, freely, before his sin had even been committed - even if he did not believe himself worthy of that forgiveness - but it was not what he wished to beg her for.

What he found himself wanting more than anything was to take it back, for her to be in front of him, living and breathing and shining full of color and life as she once had.

Instead he found himself on the ground filled with nothing but his guilt and remorse, driven there by his own conscience conjuring her up in an endless torment to repent for his sin.

* * *

Inspired by the second half "It Never Leaves," still drawn by CODEno-103


End file.
